


Words fall from your lips like honey

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Billy writes poems, Canon Compliant, Gay Billy Hargrove, M/M, POV Billy Hargrove, Season 2, Steve can sing, and he can't deal with Steve, in so much as it ever is with these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Steve, it turns out (to the surprise of absolutely everyone in the room) can sing. Like really sing. Like mind-numbingly well. Like pitch perfect, flawless execution, out of nowhere can sing.And Billy has no idea how to deal with it.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 33
Kudos: 237
Collections: harringrove for Australia





	Words fall from your lips like honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sky2Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky2Fall/gifts).



> So this is for sky2fall for HFA. :) 
> 
> The prompt was Steve singing at a party and Billy being inspired to write a poem because of it. 
> 
> The song is "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen and the poem Billy writes was written by me for this fic. 
> 
> I hope you like the fic, Ned!

It's a party like any other except it's not because Steve is there rather than be where he normally is these days, hanging out with his little nerds and doing anything but drinking, or, Billy supposes, having a good time in any sort of way, shape or form.

Nope, here he is, lurking in the background and talking to people like this is a thing he does, like this is just the way he is now, like he's just a guy who hangs out on the sidelines and smiles and something... something about that just gets under Billy's skin, but then something about Steve always has. 

Ever since Billy first heard about Steve there's always been something that bothered him - like just how the hell does a guy stumble into being the most popular guy in school and then somehow just stumble right back out again? 

Like who does that? And why? Why would you give all of that up? What possible reason could a person have for doing something like that?

'Cause Billy, okay, he knows how he looks and how he acts, he knows, but the thing about that is - it's all on purpose. The way he looks and the way he acts is the outcome of years of careful practice, of watching everyone around him and figuring it all out, figuring out exactly how popular people acted, learning by careful study exactly what to do and spending hours upon hours working on his body, his hair, his clothes, but Steve... it's like Steve just woke up one morning and decided to be popular. 

Or maybe the world decided for him, Billy isn't sure. Maybe it was less a choice for Steve and more a consequence of the way his life turned out. 

Maybe it was his hair. Maybe it was his money. Maybe it was that big, empty house that probably saw hundreds of parties just like this one, that saw untold amounts of drunken destruction and now only sees a handful of nerds sleeping over in their little sleeping bags; little nerds who at worst might leave a bag of spilled potato chips out until morning. And that's at _worst._

Maybe it was for… who knows what. Point is, Steve was popular. 

Point is, Steve had it all. 

But then, then, just as casual as anything, Steve decided to date some girl (and not even a terribly special or interesting one from what Billy's been able to tell, and he's spent time watching Nancy Wheeler, he's been interested, been curious about what could get a guy like Steve to drop everything and he's seen nothing in her that could ever prompt such behaviour) and just... Steve just... disappeared. Like everything about him was an accident and now he's someone else entirely. Someone who runs around with dumb kids and acts like that's fun and it just... it just...

He looks...

He looks so miserable at this party right now and he looks so happy when he's walking down the street, talking with that curly haired _nerd_ about whatever _nerd shit_ has caught that kid's attention at that moment and it just...

It's just infuriating.

And Billy is extra infuriated because he doesn't know _why_ it's infuriating. It's not like him to care this much about one specific person, it's not like him to...

Feel whatever it is that he feels every time he looks over at Steve and his stupid, big hair.

And then, just as Steve's looking like he might bow out for the night (and it's only 10 o'clock, the big coward) some aggressively drunk girl with a very precariously held onto glass of whatever they're calling punch at this party dares Steve to pick up the guitar in the corner and play it. Billy's not even sure she means to pick Steve specifically with the way her hand roves out among the crowd, wobbling back and forth and back and forth before finally settling on Steve as she calls out, “You! Play something!”

Steve gives her this total deer-in-the-headlights look with his ridiculous Bambi eyes as she stumbles over to him, teetering dangerously on her too-tall-for-her heels. “You should play something!” she yells as she somehow manages to simultaneously grab for his shoulder and spin around to point at the guitar in the corner.

“Oh, I don't think -” Steve starts, his eyes looking towards the door like a drowning man looks toward the shore.

“PLAY SOMETHING!” she shrieks, her tone halfway between drunken giggling and pure hysteria in a way that seems to explicitly belong to drunken teenage girls and drunken teenage girls alone.

"I -" Steve starts again, getting visibly nervous in a way that has Billy's hackles rising, has him wanting to get involved. 

Like, who does this girl think she is, anyway?

"PLAY SOMETHING!" she shrieks again and dear God, now other people are starting to notice, now the eyes of everyone else in the room are slowly but surely starting to turn towards Steve and this girl and it has this weird, protective feeling creeping up Billy's spine and spreading out over his bones, making him desperate with the need to act. He cracks his knuckles and takes a step forward, about to yell, "Alright! Show's over folks," and physically lead Steve out of the room when Steve smiles all easy and calm and takes a step towards the guitar. 

"Okay," Steve says, the warm feeling of his smile leaching into his words, coating Billy like honey and wiping away that aggressive, spiky feeling, that need to protect; the smile and those words make him feel… something and whatever it is, Billy doesn't like it.

As Steve walks forward, people part for him, creating a nice, safe crowd for Billy to melt seamlessly into. They gather around in a circle as Steve picks up the guitar and strums a few notes, testing it out - everyone seems curious about what it is he's about to do and the room is silent as they wait, silent until -

"Just play already!" 

Billy doesn't need to turn around to know it's the same drunken disaster of a girl from earlier that's shouting now, but then someone counters with: 

"Oh, just _shut up,_ Melissa! And go home! You're too drunk to be here anyway," in this loud, booming way that has the rest of the crowd tittering in laughter and Melissa running off with tears in her eyes.

And all Billy can think is _serves her right,_ as he looks back over at Steve who only grins sheepishly, smile half hidden by his hair as he continues to pluck away carefully at the guitar. 

Everyone inside the house has started to move towards the living room, to gather around Steve for this impromptu concert he's apparently going to be giving and as Billy looks around the room he can see that some of the people around them look curious and some of them look too drunk to really have a clue what's going on other than that the people moved this way and they followed. 

There are others, though, too many others that have this look on their faces like they're just waiting for Steve to fail, waiting for him to mess this up so they can snap their hungry jaws down around their former King and _bite._ And Billy's torn between wanting to join them, or, not just to join them but to laugh the _loudest,_ to scorn Steve _the most,_ and wanting to take anyone who dares laugh at Steve out to the backyard and punch them square in the face. 

Then Steve starts singing. _"Now, I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord, but you don't really care for music, do you?"_

And… the whole room goes dead silent. Billy would have thought Steve would have picked something silly, some pop song by Madonna or something. 

Not… this. 

Steve keeps going. _"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Hallelujah,"_ and he's singing it slow, he's pouring his soul into it with this deep sort of crushing sadness that Billy never would have expected.

And Steve can _sing._ Like he should be cleaning up on one of those stupid televised talent shows like _Star Search_ or whatever. That's how good he is. Like Billy can picture the headline now: _Country Boy Wonder Rocks Nation With His Incredible Voice._

Or something dumb like that. 

When he gets to the next verse Steve's face almost crumples in on itself. _"Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya."_

Billy has a sneaking suspicion that the girl Steve's singing about is Nancy Wheeler. 

_"She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah."_ As he goes it's like he's actively pushing through something just to get the words out and never has Billy ever wanted to punch Nancy Wheeler in the face so badly as he does right now.

Behind him, he hears someone sniffling and he turns just enough to see a girl with long, dark hair and smudged mascara looking deeply into her red Solo cup, doing her best to pretend she's not crying. 

Not that it works. Billy is by far not the only guy to notice, he is, however, the only one not to do anything about it as the three other guys nearest him all crowd forward to comfort her, the first to reach her and claim the prize being a guy from the Basketball team, Billy vaguely thinks his name might be Tommy C.

He tunes back in to hear Steve sing: _"I did my best, it wasn't much, I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch, I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you and even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah,"_ and Billy deeply, deeply regrets ever dragging his attention away from Steve. He knows this isn't something he's ever going to get to hear again and he needs to soak up all of it that he can. He needs to be able to remember this. 

Not that he has any idea why.

Steve drifts into the closing lyrics, just repeating _"Hallelujah"_ over and over and over until the song finally winds to a close and with it rips something open in Billy, something raw and aching and visceral and bloody.

A second after it's over Steve lifts his head up and blinks at everyone almost like he'd completely forgotten they were there at all. 

The crowd bursts into raucous applause and Steve _blushes._

Someone shouts, "King Steve, everybody!" and Steve ducks his head like he's… like he's _embarrassed_ or something.

He slips back to the edge of the party a few minutes after that, fully prepared to and only interested in pretending what just happened didn't at all.

Billy can't let it go so easily, though. Something about that song and more importantly the way Steve sang it has him pacing, has him tearing through the party, looking for… _something,_ he doesn't know what exactly until lines start pouring through his head like, " _You sing in a way that would make angels cry,"_ and, _"you're better than my favorite song,"_ and suddenly his needs become something entirely different, until what he needs most is a piece of paper and a pen and somewhere quiet to write before all the lines in his head disappear, vanish into smoke like they so love to do.

He starts ransacking the kitchen looking for just that when the girl from earlier, the one with the long brown hair and the smudged mascara comes stumbling into the kitchen, new mascara freshly and perfectly applied; slowly and purposefully she drags what is meant to be a seductive finger up Billy's arm.

"Hey, baby," she says, her voice soft and low and delicate. "You looking for something?"

"Uh-huh," Billy grunts as he internally repeats the lines in his head, trying his best to avoid letting them slip away. 

He digs through every single drawer in the absurdly oversized kitchen in this stupidly rich kid's house and still he finds nothing - the kitchen has more cupboards and cabinets than five people would need, maybe even six people would need and Billy is pretty sure this kid doesn't have any siblings, it's just his parents and him if the family photos on the wall are anything to go by. They have all this money, they have all this space and yet the kitchen is woefully understocked, there's not a pad of paper or a pen anywhere. Hell, half of the drawers he's checked are completely empty, completely for show and completely pathetic. 

He turns towards the living room, hoping he can find a pen and paper somewhere in there but the girl follows him, clearly intent on going after him, so he swings towards the stairs and the bedrooms, instead.

This, unfortunately, is a big mistake as all it does is make her eyes pop wide and make her latch a hand around Billy's arm all hot and possessive like she seems to think he wants. 

He flashes her a quick smile and she lights up from the inside like the sky on the fourth of July, clearly intent on making her intentions known but all it does is make him groan. "No," Billy says as he pries her iron-clad grip from his arm. "I'm not interested."

"Oh," she says, her whole face going dark and her thick lower lip wobbling slightly as behind them, another girl laughs. 

He holds off a snarl as he spins on the other girl and gives her a heavy glare. "I'm not interested in you, either," he says as he finally manages to fully extricate himself from the fingers of the girl clinging to him and escape upstairs, alone.

Thankfully, he finds a half-empty notebook and a pen sitting out and waiting for him in the bedroom of the kid the house belongs to.

Carefully checking to make sure no one sees him doing it, he closes the door and he sits down to write, the words pouring out of him at a rapid speed the second he picks up the pen.

_You sing in a way that would make angels cry and it makes me want to wrap your pain around my knuckles and to crack the sky for you, to break down the stars, to combust them into their rougher, coarser parts, to tear the world apart until it gives you what you want, what you need, what it should have given you from the start because your voice is like a symphony,_

_your laugh my favorite melody, the look I wish you'd give to me a tape I've worn down to infinity,_

_the things I wish you'd say, the things I wish you'd do, I've played it all out in my mind so many times it's better than my favorite song,_

_you're better than my favorite song,_

_but then you go and the music goes with you and I'm left in this barbed wire cage that is my mind to sit and to wonder why on this or any other earth you'd try so hard to hide the way those notes flowing from your mouth are poetry given sound, given feeling,_

_the level of talent you have, that gift that you've been given -_

_of all the things I've ever thought of you, on all the nights I've ever dreamed of you,_

_and believe me, there've been many,_

_and, since I'm being honest here, since I'm spilling my soul in ink and on paper, I might as well just say that I've dreamed of you almost every night since the first day we met -_

_well on each of those nights, in all of those dreams, never once did I ever think that you could sound like that, that your voice with those notes struck through it would be the thing to wrap around my broken, twisted, battered heart and start to mend it, start to give it space to heal,_

_that gift you've been given, it's the truest definition of a miracle that I think I'll ever see, or rather that I think I'll ever hear and -_

_never would I ever have thought that getting rid of the pain in your eyes would become my life's one and only true goal, but it is and it has and_

_you are._

As he sits back and realizes exactly what it is he's written and exactly who he's written it to, written it for, Billy sits back in his chair and curses, "Oh. _No."_

Because he understands now. 

The poem is for Steve. 

All the poems he's been writing have been for Steve. 

Have been about Steve. 

_To Steve._

It's stupid to think about it now, to frame things in just this way, but every time Neil has ever thrown gay slurs at him, he'd thought it had just been to be insulting. Because that's what people do. That's what people think. He's done it himself a million times. Being called gay is an insult.

But that wasn't why Neil had done it, or not his only reason, anyway.

No, Neil had done it because he _knew._

Neil had done it because he'd known it before Billy himself had figured it out. 

Billy likes Steve. 

Billy likes guys.

 _Billy is_ _gay._

It's so blatantly obvious that having to come out and realize it seems absurd. 

Of course, he's gay. 

He groans again and repeats his earlier admonition of, "Oh. _No,"_ this time with an irrepressible grin sliding its way onto his face. 

He's gay.

And it's ridiculous. 

_Of course, he's gay._

He starts to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it and then he starts to feel like he wants to cry. 

Because for all of three seconds it was like feeling the world finally coming into focus, like finally, he understood. His whole life he'd felt just vaguely out of step with everyone else, like they were all in on some joke he didn't get but he'd always just sort of figured everyone was playing up their roles, playing their parts, like he played his. 

But they weren't. They aren't.

Other guys aren't faking how they feel about girls.

They feel about girls like he feels about guys. 

About Steve. 

But. 

Then.

That means his already rotten life is now going to get even harder. 

And this isn't something he can ever run away from like he can run away from Neil someday, either.

This is something that he's stuck with. Permanently.

Forever.

This is going to make being around stupid, happy-and-yet-secretly-deeply-sad-for-reasons-unknown, Steve Harrington, with his stupid, nice hair even harder. 

This only makes everything worse.

And he has no idea what to do about it. Or how to deal with it. 


End file.
